The Meaning of Coffee

The Meaning of Coffee

Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - 18:26

For those who don't know, I recently accepted a position at an established company not too far from the store. AFTER I start working there, I discovered the place is extremely regimented. In fact, I think they could teach the army how to be more militant about rules and punishments and all that. My favorite rule is the no coffee rule. There is a sign, above the door leading from the cafeteria into the holding cell / work area that reads "No coffee or beverage beyond this point." No coffee? Is that for real? Isn't that against some law?? Now, let me tell you, lest you forget my lowly station in life, that I am not a nuerosurgeon who can't be lingering over open brain surgeries, simultaneously performing a craniotomy replete with brainshunts, while sipping my morning triple vanilla latte no fat hold the foam. No, I am not a nuclear weapon scientist who cannot risk upsetting the delicate caffiene to oxygen ratio in the air surrounding deadly weapons by daring to sip on my good to the last drop drip coffee. I am, sadly, a lowly programmer. I sit, very still, I might add, in a chair, at a desk, with nothing more than a keyboard and a mouse in front of me. No patients on the brink of death who rely on my miracles, no delicate engineering marvel that is the nuclear warhead, just a keyboard. And a mouse. And no coffee. I tried, I really did. "I don't NEED the coffee," I told myself. And you know what? That's BULLSHIT. I do TO need the coffee. I cannot live without it. And why would I? And so, thusly armed with my logic (hey, I had had no coffee, keep your expectations down, will ya?) I approached my boss. Who has worked in this environment for 20 years, and who will only say the workplace is "lean" and "strict". I tried to talk calmly, explaining my dependence on caffiene, telling him that there are LAWS that programmers must have direct access to coffee at ALL times or ELSE. That's when I spied it. A can. On his desk. A COKE can, to be specific. "How can that be?" I asked myself. "What the HELL is that?" I asked him. (Never one known for holding back, if you didn't already know.) After a long (and I'd like to say calm, but hey, *I* was involved) conversation, I DID manage to get him to agree that the rule was unfair. He did, in his defense, refuse to accept the $4.00 I held out to pay, in advance, for the replacement of my keyboard, in the event I had an epileptic seizure and spilled so much coffee as to render it unusable. The terms? I have to keep my coffee in a "sippy-cup." Not my words, his. Who, for pete's sake, calls a $20 coffee tumbler from Starbucks a mother-freaking SIPPY-CUP???!?!?!? Crazy people, that's who. I almost considered NOT having coffee at my desk, just to show what I thought about the whole sippy-cup thing. But then, cooler moods prevailed, and I realized I was only spiting myself. At least I had managed to overturn a rule that had been in place for over twenty years, and there is something to say for that. So, now I drink my coffee in my sippy-cup like I'm a wobbly toddler that can't be trusted, and I sit. And type. ALL day long. **sigh**